Aiya Almogaber

Adam Padgett
ENGL 102
March 24, 2016
Annotated Bibliography
Inquiry: How beneficial are college degrees nowadays?
Proposed thesis: When weighing the potential reasons for attending college, one will see that
having a college degree is almost always beneficial.
Rawlins, V. Lane. Discrimination, Achievement, and Payoffs of a College Degree: A
Comment.
The Journal of Human Resources 9.3 (1974): 415420. Web...

Comment [AP1]: This is a really interesting question. But

Im wondering if you can be more specific about what you
mean by beneficial?
Comment [AP2]: So I dont think anyone would doubt
that it could be, generally speaking, beneficial to have a
college degree. But I think it would be much more
interesting to maybe do a cost-benefit analysis of the
modern bachelors degree.
Comment [AP3]: Yikes, this one is quite dated.

This article is written by V Lane Rawlins, and is published in the Journal of Human Resources.
The article gains credibility because of its publication by the University of Wisconsin Press,
which means it was written by well educated people and has been read and edited. I chose this
article because it explains the discrimination, achievement and payoffs of having a college
degree. It states that in almost every case, there is a positive relationship between the relative
earnings for someone per year, and their level of education. It includes a chart that compares the
years of schooling of people of different races (white vs. nonwhite) and their mean annual
income and change in earnings. Based on the information in the chart, the recalculated ratios
present a considerably less favorable picture for black college students The data in the chart,
however, is somewhat old, which could mean that things have changed since then. Including
different races will be beneficial to my paper because I will be able to look at the differences in
wages compared to races and how that relates to the reasons why some may not attend college.

Comment [AP4]: Somewhat is an understatement.

Sutton, W. S. et al.. The Unification of College Degrees. The School Review 8.2 (1900): 92
123. Web...

Comment [AP5]: This one is super duper old. Not sure if

you can use this one unless you are going to offer a history
of the issue.

This article is published in a collection called The School Review, and was published by The
University of Chicago Press. This means that the source was written by well educated people,
read, and edited before its publication date. This article begins by differentiating between the

Comment [AP6]: This is fine, but you cant lead every

annotation with the same opener. Simply telling me the
publisher info is enough. Also, the publisher info should be
in the citation anyway, so do you really need it here?

different degree types and how they were seen in history. It features different university
presidents and their thoughts on the B.A. degree, the B.S. degree, and the Doctors and Masters.
Apparently, the early doctorate and mastership were not considered formal degrees, but almost
licenses. The B.A. degree, then has held significance for hundreds of years and has been based
off of the ideal of ancient classics. In comparison, the bachelor of arts degree has always been a
little more than a bachelor of the classics, up until recent times. It is important to know the
different types of degrees and how they came about for my paper so I can compare the benefits
and pros/cons of having each one and how that affects the rates of people attaining them.

Eisendrath, Craig R., and Thomas J. Cottle. The Modern Family Goes to College. The Journal
of Higher Education 45.9 (1974): 706716. Web...
This article is found if the Journal of Higher Education, and was published by the Ohio State
University Press. This source has credibility based on these facts that suggest that it has been
read and edited before being published. The article is unique because it focuses on people and
colleges today, rather than providing historical context. It touches on the fact that there is evident

Comment [AP7]: All of this is pretty self-evidence based

on your citation. Unless there is something you especially
need to point out with respect to its credibility, dont bother
re-pointing this out.

tension between faculty members and students, and the importance of maybe establishing
humane programs within colleges and universities. The article refers to college students as
adolescents and states that the four years at college are just a prolongation of adolescence.
The article offers a somewhat demeaning tone when discussing college, as it explains that

Comment [AP8]: Okay this is really interesting, but is

this representative of contemporary scholarship?

students that sit in a college classroom and being sealed up in a state of adolescence, and
denying themselves the need to develop into adults. This information can be used in my paper to
discuss the different reasons that one may/may not attend college. It places emphasis on the
importance of family and how that relates to whether or not the children in the house end up
attending college or not.

Dole, Arthur A.. Stability of Reasons for Going to College. The Journal of Educational
Research 63.8 (1970): 373378. Web...
This particular article focuses on the stability reasons for going to college. It was published in the
Journal of Educational Research. The source is credible because research was conducted as part
of an experiment before the results were published. Over 3 years, 78 different reasons for going
to college were examined using 520 students who completed all four years. They were initially
asked, as freshmen, why they wanted to attend college and then asked again, as seniors, if their
answers to that question changed or not. The top reasons for attending college were: the college
degree was necessary for the kind of work they wanted to pursue, wanting to prepare themselves
to be more successful in life, and self improvement. The main reason I found this article relevant
to my topic is because it shows the different reasons to attend college even if the reasons do not
include attaining a degree for any specific reason.

Mooney, W. D.. College Degrees. The School Review 7.3 (1899): 168170. Web...
This article is published in the School Review by the University of Chicago Press, which means it
has credibility. It chooses not to focus on professional degrees, such as law, medicine, dentistry,
and pharmacy. They explain that regular degrees would be equivalent to the work done in
college or universities. It discuses that the main problem with the degrees being given out today

is that they come from so many different sources. Sources can differ widely from volume and
purity of the stream. The authors include information about how every educator should be
aware of the eagerness with which honorary degrees are sought out, making it harder for
everyone that wants a college degree to be given the chance to get one.

Werth, Barry. Why Is College so Expensive?: Maybe America Wants It That Way. Change
20.2 (1988): 1225. Web...
This article is published in a newspaper titled Change by Taylor and Francis, Ltd. The source is
credible because it had to be written by well educated people and went through thorough editing
before it could be published. The article is relevant to my topic because it discusses one of the
biggest reasons people today are not attending college: cost of tuition. It included information
about how the even though the college-age population was dropping, the price of college tuition
was skyrocketing. Apparently, a colleges fortunes rise and fall depends on the quality of
students it attracts. I can include information and quotes from this article in my paper because it
can offer additional insight to why some people, even if they wanted to, would not attend
college. College tuition is constantly increasing, and we see this today when we compare the
price we pay to go to college to the price they paid to a couple hundred years ago.

Aiya,
I think your inquiry is certainly worth asking, and youve done a really great job finding peerreviewed sources, but all of your sources are severely dated. Your most recent one was published
in the 80s, and your oldest one was published in the 1800s. This is problematic. I get the sense
that you need to reorient the general direction of your inquiry or what it is that you was to learn
or discover about this topic. I mentioned that maybe a cost-benefit analysis could be interesting,

but perhaps your are interested in something else. Try to get more specific with your inquiry.
Email me if youd life help or more clarification on this.